Mayflower Postcards

It's hard to believe that it is already time for Thanksgiving break! For the coming holiday we studied the Mayflower. We read a magazine about the experience that children had on the Mayflower. We learned vocabulary words like "miserable" and "seasick." After, we created our own post cards being sent from the Mayflower. We each created a picture in Pixie (a computer drawing program) and then wrote a message on the back about what it was like to be on the Mayflower. We delivered our post cards to friends and teachers around the school, or brought them home to deliver to family.

Sink or Float

This week in science we tried to figure out why things float. First we made some predictions- we thought that things might float because they're flat, round, heavier than the water, light, have air inside, or because "they don't have a lot of stuff inside them." To test our theories we used a variety of fruit. To our surprise many of the the fruits floated except the grape and the mango. Afterwards we went back and reflected on our original ideas. We talked about some of the reasons that things float like shape, weight, and density. 

In the picture below students are holding up sink or float cards to predict what a piece of fruit will do.

 

Happy Halloween!

We had a great day today! We started our day practicing retelling stories with The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. We've been learning that when you retell it's important to also talk about the characters. This led perfectly into sharing our costumes and the books that went along with them. Students talked about their character and about a favorite part in the story. In the afternoon we practiced fact families with some Halloween themed math centers including Candy Corn Fact Families, Monster Fact Family Puzzles, and Frankenstein Fact Family Cards. 

I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween! 

 

 

Pumpkin Day

Hooray, hooray for Pumpkin Day! 

Today we finally got to dig in to our pumpkins and count the seeds. Yesterday each team measured their pumpkins, made a prediction, and planned their group work. Today we carried out our plans. Most teams chose to count by tens and assigned jobs. After counting up the seeds in each pumpkin we learned about place value and used manipulatives to find the total number of seeds in all our pumpkins. There were 2,848 seeds! The day was filled with many other pumpkin activities, including snacking on our pumpkin seeds in the afternoon. 

Thanks to all who were able to send in a pumpkin for us to use! We appreciate your support.

 

 

 

 

Domino Addition

In our second math unit we are focusing on addition strategies, fact families, and story problems. We've been using dominoes to practice more efficient addition and subitizing. We've learned lots of new games with dominoes, including the classic game. If you have dominoes at home, try playing a game with your first grader!

 
 

 

Fire Prevention

Today was Southeast's fire prevention day! We learned about fire safety at home, looked at the different parts of a fire truck, and practiced stop, drop, and roll.

Checking for Understanding

One of the most important skills that we will practice this year in reader's workshop is monitoring understanding and rereading as needed. This is a skill that we learned about in our first week of school, and that we'll continue practicing throughout the whole year. We learned that readers can check for understanding as they read by stopping now and then and asking themselves questions like "who is the book about?" and "what has happened in the book so far?" This skill will support all of our comprehension work this year. Last week, students each got check marks with the words who and what on them as reminders to check for understanding. You can prompt students to monitor their comprehension at home by asking these two questions throughout the book as well!

Reading Partners

We've added a new piece to our daily reader's workshop. Students now practice independent reading along with partner reading each day. We've learned about how reading partners sit with each other, how they hold their books, and the voice that they use to read. Throughout the year reading partners will support each other by practicing reading skills, sharing books with eachother, and talking about their reading.

Studying Seeds

In science right now we are studying seeds. We started by learning about the parts of a seed. To see these parts for ourselves we dissected lima beans. We learned that seeds have seed coats, embryos, and food. Last week we learned about how seed travel. We learned that there are many ways seeds move to new places including by wind, water, and animal. We looked at examples of different seeds from outside and thought about how they traveled. Then students made their own helicopter seeds.

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Butterflies

Last week we were lucky to have some monarch chrysalises donated to our classroom. We spent the week watching them change as the butterflies prepared to come out. The chrysalises became clear and we could see the butterflies inside. On Friday we got to watch a butterfly emerge and dry its wings. In the last few moments of our week the butterfly was ready to go outside and we got to release him. Students will learn much more about butterflies in the second grade monarch unit, but we enjoyed the chance to watch this process!

Observations in Science

To kick off our science lessons for the year we've been practicing making observations and asking questions. To get us started we went on a nature walk on the Southeast trails. We smelled, heard, saw, and touched all kinds of things. In our class someone noticed how the color of pine needles changes when they fall off the tree. We took some fresh pine needles and have been watching them in our room to see how long it takes for their color to change to brown. We've also been lucky to get 4 monarch chrysalises which we've been observing. We should have a butterfly soon! 

Ten and More

This week in math we are working on building number concepts up to 20. Today we played a matching game pairing "ten and more" facts with double ten frames. This is one of the models that we'll use to visualize numbers and support operations throughout the year.

Short Vowel Hop

We've started our year reviewing the vowel sounds. So far, we've focused mainly on short vowel sounds. To help us quickly practice the short vowel sounds we've done a few short vowel hops. Each student hops from vowel to vowel and says the short sound out loud. This has helped support our spelling as we've been working on short vowel words.

Reader's Workshop

This year in first grade we are using a workshop model for reading instruction. Each day we meet for a mini lesson focused on a reading skill, and then students go off and practice independent reading. During this reading time I meet one on one and in small groups with students to work on specific reading goals. At the end of our reading time we meet once more to reflect on a skill or strategy and share about our reading that day. The main component of our reading workshop is spending quality time in text. This month we've kicked off our workshop by looking at ways to pick just right books, learning about foundational skills that readers use consistently, and building our reading stamina. We have gone from 3 minutes of engaged reading to 7 minutes and we track the growth in our reading stamina each day. Look at all of these engaged readers!

Welcome to First Grade!

We have an exciting year ahead of us! First grade is a time of incredible growth academically and socially. This year the seeds that were planted in preschool and kindergarten will continue to grow and develop. First graders will become more confident and fluent readers and writers. Their knowledge of math concepts will become more complex and abstract. They'll develop academic skills that will provide the foundation for the rest of their school lives. My hope is that they will also continue to develop a true love for learning.

This year will be fun, challenging, exciting, and full of growth. I can't wait to go on this adventure with you!

Product Reviews

Our class worked hard in our last writing unit studying opinion writing and reviews. Below are recordings of our product reviews. Students wrote, rehearsed, and recorded these reviews in only one week! For this reason, they are a bit shorter than the more extensive reviews that we wrote earlier in the unit.

There are still a few students who are finishing up and will be posted soon. We hope you enjoy!

Dental Hygiene Presentation

Today three presenters from the UCONN Oral Health Association came to talk to us about dental hygiene. We learned what kinds of things help our teeth and what kinds of things can hurt our teeth. We also learned how to brush and floss.

Animal Research

As we've studied informational text this week students have become animal researchers. We learned about the different animal groups and now students are hunting through books to find information about one group's characteristics, food, habitat, and other facts. The main focus for this project is learning to use informational text-features to learn new information, and practicing research skills. We will continue to deepen our understanding of both of these skills in the next step where we research and write about one kind of animal. 

Science Fair

Tonight was the Science Fair and Invention Convention at Southeast! It was wonderful to see so many students who worked hard on creative and thoughtful projects. Congratulations to Brynn, Joseph, Oliver, and Maria who had projects in the fair from our class. They were fantastic!! Thank you to families who came to support the science fair and who helped students come up with these excellent projects.